Recent Posts
What Memes Mean: Muppet Political DiscourseLiving in an age where even Muppets offer political criticism ought to inspire us to speak better.
Music at Mars Hill: Lessons From Leonard Cohen“Old Ideas”‘ simplicity and focus on songwriting feels refreshing.
When Games Matter: Arkham City and Seamless Storytelling“This moment in Arkham City gives me hope because it was a moment of truth. A moment when the world worked as it should and my determination to save it was tested.”
Two Can Play at That: What Komen Can Teach Us about BoycottsIs it justified, even heroic, to use power to force our will on others?
Citizenship Confusion: Pamela Geller Abuses a Murder“Voices like Robert Spencer and Pamela Geller are very dangerous, particular for Christians and conservatives”
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Reviews of comics, graphic novels, and manga by Seth T. Hahne, CaPC's new illustrator.
Author Archive
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Boys, Reading, and Video Games
Posted on September 27, 2010 | 4 CommentsThomas Spence’s Wall Street Journal piece “How to Raise Boys Who Read: Not with Gross-out Books and Video-Game Bribes” has a number of interesting points. First of all, there’s the rebuttal of the common publishing myth that the way to get boys interested in reading... -
Winter’s Bone: A Sundance Winner That Doesn’t Sell out the South
Posted on September 13, 2010 | 2 CommentsFinally a film that acknowledges the complexity of southern people without passing judgment. -
A Parable of the Two Philip Pullmans (Philips Pullman?)
Posted on August 31, 2010 | 5 CommentsAt Books & Culture, Betty Smartt Carter’s “The Good Man Philip and the Scoundrel Pullman” is an amusing summary of Philip Pullman’s career, written as a semi-parody of the Grand Idea of his recent novel (The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ), in which... -
Eat, Pray, Love My Middle-Aged Neighbor
Posted on August 18, 2010 | 5 CommentsWhat lessons can a morally questionable film offer the church? -
The Bechdel Test
Posted on August 8, 2010 | 2 CommentsI’ve seen several references recently to the “Bechdel Test” for movies, including one last week in Christianity Today‘s Her.meneutics blog. If you’re not familiar with the Bechdel Test, it judges a movie’s portrayal of women based on three criteria: 1. It has to have at... -
The Last Airbender Is . . . Not a Good Movie
Posted on July 6, 2010 | 3 CommentsWas anyone else aware of this? -
Novel Theophany: Megan Whalen Turner’s Fictional Pantheon
Posted on June 22, 2010 | 13 CommentsWhat's a reader to do when we're frustrated with the author? Trust them. -
The Voyage of the Dawn Treader Trailer
Posted on June 17, 2010 | 1 CommentThe first trailer for The Voyage of the Dawn Treader is out: the movie itself will be released in December. Aside from the usual hokey trailer things, I see a few items of interest here: first, DUFFLEPUDS! Second, must we trot out the White Witch... -
The Swell Season, David Crowder & the Negative Power of a Song’s Backstory
Posted on June 7, 2010 | 5 CommentsSometimes lyrical ignorance is bliss. -
An Inconvenient (Biblical) Truth
Posted on May 11, 2010 | 1 CommentJonathan's Merritt's Green Like God makes it clear that environmentalism isn't just a liberal issue. -
Just How Shocking Should Artistic Representations of the Crucifixion Be?
Posted on April 3, 2010 | No CommentsA 10-year-old’s modern-day interpretation of one of the Stations of the Cross was removed from a church-affiliated exhibition. -
‘The Last Station’ and the Gospel of Fluff
Posted on March 4, 2010 | 4 CommentsHow Hollywood and the church can screw up a good story. -
“Why There Is No Jewish Narnia”
Posted on March 3, 2010 | 4 CommentsAn article from the inaugural issue of the Jewish Review of Books explores why so few fantasy writers have been Jewish: To put it crudely, if Christianity is a fantasy religion, then Judaism is a science fiction religion. If the former is individualistic, magical, and... -
What ‘The Last Station’ Could Have Been
Posted on February 27, 2010 | No CommentsEve Tushnet on the movie that The Last Station could have been: Jesus himself said that following Him would mean putting aside family ties: “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and... -
Thou Shalt Not Covet Thy Neighbor’s Wii Fit Bronze Pig
Posted on February 25, 2010 | 5 CommentsCarissa Smith mixes her metaphors and tries not to turn the Wii Fit into a golden calf. -
Sundance Grand Jury Winner Deals with Meth in Rural America
Posted on February 12, 2010 | No CommentsThis is a bit belated at this point, but somehow I didn’t read until now that Winter’s Bone, the Grand Jury Prize winner at Sundance, deals with the effects of meth on a rural community in the Ozarks. Since my parents live in the Ozarks... -
‘Up in the Air’: A Meditation on Scriptedness
Posted on January 27, 2010 | 2 CommentsWhy is it so hard to mean what we say? -
Most-Performed Plays of the Decade
Posted on January 12, 2010 | No CommentsThe Wall Street Journal‘s drama critic, Terry Teachout, shares a list of the eleven most frequently produced plays in the U.S. over the past decade. Teachout concludes: This suggests that, Broadway producers notwithstanding, American theatergoers are not know-nothing neanderthals but intelligent people who are prepared... -
‘The Road’ Goes Ever On
Posted on December 30, 2009 | 7 CommentsCarissa explores the gestures of hope in The Road. -
Douthat: Pantheism and “Avatar”
Posted on December 21, 2009 | 4 CommentsRuss Douthat takes on pantheism in James Cameron’s Avatar: “It’s fitting that James Cameron’s “Avatar” arrived in theaters at Christmastime. Like the holiday season itself, the science fiction epic is a crass embodiment of capitalistic excess wrapped around a deeply felt religious message. It’s at...